The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Iron ore remains the most bullish commodity of the year, with prices fuelled by Chinese demand and supply disruptions in Brazil, along with bullish sentiment. But prices are expected to come down because Brazilian exports have begun to recover, and have reached their highest level since the Brumadinho dam disaster in 2019. W...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.In the iron ore market, supply issues including heavy rains at the start of the year, followed by staffing problems during the Covid-19 pandemic, have affected exports from Brazil. This has helped Australia gain a larger market share, but since June, Brazilian export volumes have returned to levels last seen before the...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Chinese blast furnace (BF) utilization rates have stagnated and iron ore port stock volumes are rising, reaching their highest levels since March, which suggests that iron ore supply is becoming excessive while demand is not growing. Unsurprisingly, prices dropped last week and we expect the trend to continue. The market has...Read More

Some steel rebar and billet prices in the United Arab Emirates decreased during the week ended Tuesday June 15, although demand was better because of low stock levels, sources have told Fastmarkets.Local rebar producers kept their prices unchanged during the week, but gave some discounts.Domestic rebarThe country's biggest producer, Emirates Steel, was offering rebar at 3,067 dirhams ($835) per to...Read More

Keen selling was seen across the London Metal Exchange and throughout the day on Tuesday June 15, which took the price of copper to its lowest level since late April this year.Copper's three-month closing price was $9,569 per tonne, showing a 4% decrease from Monday's closing price of $9,971.50 per tonne.Its intraday low of $9,511 per tonne was the lowest price for copper since April 23, while the...Read More

RAPAPORT... Hong Kong jeweler Chow Tai Fook has joined the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO) in what the organization hails as a "giant milestone" for the industry.Chow Tai Fook will "provide [the] confederation with a considerably broader perspective, not only in what are several of the fastest-growing markets in the global jewelry trade, but also in the online environment, which is consuming...Read More

RAPAPORT... Emma Hill plans to retire from her role as chair of her father's jewelry chain, Michael Hill, at the end of the month.Hill - who has worked for the Australia-based company since starting on the shop floor of a New Zealand branch at 13 - will leave on June 28, the retailer said last week. During her more than 30-year tenure at Michael Hill, she established the Canadian arm of the compan...Read More

RAPAPORT... Netflix will debut a new action movie this month that centers on the diamond mines of Canada's Northwest Territories.The Ice Road, which stars Liam Neeson and Laurence Fishburne, will hit screens on June 25. The movie follows a daring rescue over the thawing winter passageway to save trapped workers after a diamond mine in the remote arctic region collapses. While the story's premise i...Read More

The 2008 economic crash left the diamond-financing sector cautious, but the effects of the coronavirus have restored some balance.RAPAPORT... For just over a decade, the diamond midstream - consisting of manufacturers and dealers - has served as a repository for the trade's inventory and absorbed much of its credit risk. Manufacturers pay up front for rough, process the stone, and then typica...Read More

Striking workers at Vale's mine in Sudbury, Ontario, rejected the company's latest offer on Monday June 14; the ongoing strike was the main contributor to a rise in nickel premiums in the United States on Tuesday June 15, sources said.The premium increases - including a 16.67% week-on-week jump for nickel briquette - came quicker than most participants anticipated, with the strike at Vale entering...Read More

(IDEX Online) - A South African village is in the grip of a diamond rush, after a herd man dug up an unidentified stone on Saturday.More than 1,000 people have since flocked to KwaHlathi, in KwaZulu-Natal province, armed with picks, shovels and forks in the hope of making their fortune.The stones have yet to be identified but that hasn't deterred the crowds, nor have concerns about who owns t...Read More

(IDEX Online) - About 150 lecturers at Oxford University are boycotting the college attended by Cecil Rhodes, founder of the De Beers diamond empire.They're refusing to teach at Oriel College over its decision not to remove a controversial statue of Rhodes.Detractors accuse him of being a racist, a white supremacist and the father of apartheid.Rhodes gave his name to the territory that was on...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Ghana's only large-scale diamond producer has stopped mining, two years after the government took control.Ghana Consolidated Diamonds was bought by Jospong Group of Companies, a waste collection firm, in 2011. It promised to invest $100m over five years, to produce 1m carats annually and to create 2,000 jobs, but failed to deliver. The company was taken back into sta...Read More

Russian aluminium producer Rusal is to invest in the expansion and upgrading of its aluminium operations using capital raised through Nornickel's proposed share buyback scheme, the company said on Tuesday June 15. Rusal currently holds a 27.8% ownership in Nornickel, the Russian based high-grade nickel and palladium mining company. The exact amount of shares that will be repurchased by Nornickel h...Read More

Brazilian miner Vale has produced the first ore at its Voisey's Bay nickel operation expansion in Canada - exploring underground reserves - after 16 years of open-pit mining, the company said on Tuesday June 15.Located in the Canadian northern Labrador region, the underground operation has a capacity of 40,000 tonnes per year of nickel concentrate and will first explore the Reid Brook ore deposit,...Read More

The debut of Zijin Mining 's new Serbian copper mine has been postponed to the fourth quarter of 2021, local media See News reported on Tuesday June 15. Citing a statement from Serbia's mining ministry on Monday June 14, the mine in the Cukaru Peki Upper Zone of Serbia's Timok copper-gold project has received approval to construct the mining facilities and execute mining operations, the...Read More

Weakness was evident across the base metals in London and Shanghai on the morning of Tuesday June 15 despite pre-market Western equity index futures driving higher and high volumes traded on the London Metal Exchange.14,205 lots had been traded on the LME by 5.52am London time compared with typical volume of 6,000 lots at this timeMarkets seem to be nervous about the measures China's authorities m...Read More

The development and use of carbon-capture technologies for industrial sectors such as steel will be central to the push toward a decarbonized economy, according to John Kerry, the United States' Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.Reducing the cost of these technologies will also be critical in enabling access on a wider scale and to meeting net-zero carbon targets, Kerry told a webinar on Tues...Read More

Most prices for flat steel imported into the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia increased during the week ended Tuesday June 15, with several deals heard, sources have told Fastmarkets.Demand was moderate in the region for flat steel products but the new deals were expected because most users have low stock levels, the sources added.Saudi ArabiaHot-rolled coil was offered at $1,000 per tonne cf...Read More

The government of Pakistan has suggested the reduction or removal of custom duty, additional customs duty and regulatory duty on imports of hot-rolled coil and hot-rolled stainless steel in the country's budget for 2021-22, announced on Friday June 11.The proposal came under the heading of industrial relief measures. The details have yet to be announced, sources told Fastmarkets.The Pakistan parli...Read More